UK: Migrants’ rights protests and backlash

In June, hundreds of people staged an anti-racism rally in Glasgow, UK. Soon afterwards, a Black Lives Matter protest was held outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh in solidarity with Scotland’s Sudanese people; this protest came in response to the problems faced in Glasgow by asylum-seekers who had been moved by a private-sector contractor into temporary hotel accommodation because of the pandemic and given minimal support. In September, people held a further protest in Glasgow against the treatment of refugees following the deaths of two refugees who were going through the asylum process. Throughout the year, protests by asylum seekers decrying their living conditions took place in cities across the UK.

The British context, however, was of an ongoing anti-rights reaction by an increasingly isolationist section of the post-Brexit public, furthered by the ruling party and reinforced by the fears, uncertainties and resulting scapegoating brought about by the pandemic. Migrants and refugees were frequently dehumanised in public discourse.